Category: Abbeyfeale

All ready for sports day!

A very quick update because I’m all excited! Tim went to Torit this week and thankfully returned safely but tired this afternoon but not before doing a little shopping for provisions and for this present for me! 

It is a punishing drive of about 6 hours on bad and dangerous roads. I had armed him on Monday before he left with two packets of cigarettes. (Nana if you are reading this, I found them on the airplane and they’re definitely not mine!) I figured that if the car was stopped on the way, the cigarettes would be useful in negotiations. Anyway, thankfully they weren’t needed and the journey both ways was fine.

Tim returned with this amazing present for me. Now I’m all ready for tomorrow’s sports day at the school!!

And, I’ll be able to wear it when I’m shouting for South Sudan in the Olympics now that they will be able to enter teams in the future.

Ole South Sudan!!

  

What can you do??

My adventure in Narus, South Sudan has come to an end for now but my love affair will continue. I know that many of you have followed my journey and offered words of encouragement and support. I have greatly appreciated these kindnesses.

It is not that I feel I have done my bit but rather I need your help in achieving the next bit. I have grown to love Narus and I have learned the culture and more importantly the need of the people there. In particular the need for educational support is overwhelming. 

In St. Bakhita there are 600 students but the facilities are dire. I have identified a number of projects that I would like to help make a reality. To do this, I need to be very sensible about how money is managed so I am asking you to contribute and I have asked Fr. Tim (who you will have read lots about on my blog) to administer and manage the money. We can collect Gift Aid by sending funds through St. Patricks Missionary Society and then onwards to Tim.

These are the improvements that with your help, we hope to make in St. Bakhita, some of these projects will impact the rest of the village so positively too.

– The installation of a play ground  for the youngest  children. Currently there is nothing to amuse the small children and nothing for them to play with. I have arranged that the equipment (swings, slide, climbing frame, merry-go-round etc) will be built in the metalwork shop at the local Vocational Training Centre to keep costs down and to provide work in the local area. Thus, we just need to find funds for the materials and the delivery of those materials to Narus.

– The dining room is in desperate need of refurbishment. Right now, children do not use it because it is full of bugs and the floor is all broken up. They sit outside under the trees with their rations. The floor needs to be relaid and the windows which have been eaten through by termites need to be replaced with more suitable metal alternatives.

– There are no fire extinguishers or lightening rods in any of the buildings and I feel that this needs to be addressed as a matter or urgency.

– Funds have been procured to build a new dorm so that girls will not need to share beds in cramped dorms. 50 metal beds, mattresses and linen will need to be purchased to furnish the dorm.

– The school is in desperate need of teachers. Many of the teachers who remain are not qualified. Despite this, the girls do so well. It would be wonderful to be able to support the development of teachers by sponsoring their qualification.

What can you do to help?

 I have set up a facility for online donations which can be found at:

 http://www.charitychoice.co.uk/fundraiser/helenaquinn/

Alternatively, you might prefer to lodge any donations directly to the Abbeyfeale for Africa account. If that is the case, please contact me directly on helenaquinn@gmail.com for the details.

Thank you 🙂

Solo in South Sudan

Disclaimer: this is likely to be another sentimental post so turn away now if you’re not if a soppy disposition!

I have been thinking in the last few days about my time here and in that reflection I have come to realise that nothing was as I expected. I’m not sure I knew what to expect but I remember before the trip being very nervous about the fact that I was making a pretty large step into the unknown on my own. A long term relationship which gad seemed so full of hope had ended in a pretty messy fashion and I think I focused on the fact that I was alone and about to embark on this trip without company.

It is no secret that I hate being alone. I look for company and I’m always surrounded by friends or family. I don’t like my own company and the very thought of spending an evening or weekend on my own depresses me completely.

I was so wrong about this trip. Since the very minute I stepped out of the airport in Nairobi, I have been among friends. John Marren collected me from the airport when I arrived and we very quickly became life long friends. He has been a marvellous support and the very dearest friend and I am so thankful that my trip started with his company. 

Fr. Tim has been like a big brother to me, supporting me when I needed it and teasing me when that was required too. I have learned much from him. He cares for the people here so deeply and is so committed to education and to the futures of the young people. The people of Narus and indeed much further afield respect him greatly. He is calm and sincere and wise. He always seems to know what the right course of action is and is motivated by the needs of others always before his own. Most of all, I have learned that small kindnesses that seem trivial to us mean the world to other people. I’m really glad that I will have a few days in Nairobi with him. I think saying goodbye to him today too would just be too much!

And John Joe – what have I learned from him! Well, the art of turning reheated beans and rice into a Michelin star serving is not to be scoffed at. I tease Fr. John Joe all the time that he always sees the better in people. I tease him but I deeply respect him for it. He looks at the world through a different lens than me. When people do something I do not agree with or think is right, I get angry about it. I focus on the outcome of that action. Fr. John Joe has a unique way of seeing why a person might act the way they do. I get angry about the corruption that is rife here, he feels for the circumstances that drive people to behave that way.

So you see, with company as I have had, with the friends I have made not just among the Kiltegan priests but the people of Narus I have not once been alone. I have not felt lonely or isolated. On the contrary, I have been amongst the very best of friends and I will always be very thankful for that.

Maybe I should change the name of this blog to “Happy in South Sudan” or “The best version of myself in South Sudan”

Standard 8 update

Big news from Standard 8!

I thought you might like to see some of my friends in Standard 8. We took this picture after a revision class last Saturday morning. We had begun at 8 am and finished at 10:30am. A long morning for the girls!

I wish I could tell you the stories about Gloria who always scores top of her class while at the same time nursing her fellow pupils through their illnesses, about Stella who as soon as she gets a result of an exam runs straight to Sister Susan to share her news – just as I ran to my Grandad when I was her age, about Mekhides who came to Narus from Ethopia two years ago with no English who is now consistently in the top three in her class, about Rose who is so full of fun and love.

The girls sat their mock exams last week. Students from Comboni boys school, Lolim and Newcush joined us in our dining hall to sit the exams. There were four exams, Maths, English, Science and a combined exam for CRE and Social Studies.

And my word did those girls perform! The English paper came first on the Monday morning. In the afternoon was Science. The panel began correcting the English papers for the 95 students during the next exam. But…apparently our Standard 8 girls performed too well and were accused of having cheated. The head teacher of Lolim accused us of having shared the paper with the girls and said that he had heard it was for sale in the Dinka market.

What utter rubbish. The most obvious response would have been to tell the guy to sober up (he had been drunk for most of the day) and ignore him but instead the inspector was called and a two hour meeting took place on the next morning while I invigilated my own maths exam. The girls results in the mocks (with the possible exception of maths) were consistent with their mid term and end of term exams. They work so very hard and Aguer, their English teacher seems to spend endless hours with them.

And then maths. I haven’t yet seen the maths results in their entirety but what I do know is that we are the top school in Kapoeta East after this exam. There were quite a few girls who scored in excess of 85% which I think is incredible. The top score was 92% and the girl is disappointed. She normally scores in the very high nineties.

I will admit though that there was just one that desperately mattered to me and that was Christine Peter. She is a very quiet and shy girl. She works hard but finds maths a challenge. She was always around and about the 40% mark. Her sister Josephine is in Bakhita Secondary and from is a gifted student. Her younger sister Regina is in Standard 7 in Bakhita primary. Christine came to me and asked for help with Algebra. We had extra classes every Saturday morning so we used those classes to work together on Algebra.

I subsequently realised that not only was Christine taking extra classes with me but also with a teacher called Karragache who teaches maths in the younger classes too. When I realised that the papers had been corrected, I went immediately to look through them. As excited as I was to see the other results, I really just wanted to see Christine’s result – a mind blowing 87%! Can you believe it? I was so excited and so happy for her. I texted Fr. Tim immediately to share the news through my tears!

Seeing her this weekend and seeing how happy and how proud she was, that’s a feeling that will stay with me. Her fellow students seemed equally happy for her. She was so excited to tell me, I gave her the biggest hug!

Through my education I was lucky to have teachers who cared about me, more than I can name but they included Miss Caroline Griffin and Master Pat Callaghan in primary school and in secondary school Maura Curtin, Bat Wrenn, Marian Madigan, Joe Keeffe and Marian Horgan. All gave me extra classes and endless amounts of their time and energy for which I have always been grateful. I would hope that I made them as proud as I was of Christine.

Maybe in years to come, Christine will write a blog on some adventure of hers and remember that Irish woman who came for a few months and cared about her.

Following in footsteps

I found this in my purse when packing yesterday. I don’t know where it came from but I expect I found it once upon a time in my grandmothers things. I don’t know the context or which paper it appeared in. By the time my dad was 21 he had already served one tour of duty in Katanga Province in the Congo, had been involved in the Siege of Jadotville and spend a number of months as a hostage held by Katanga rebels. I think when this note was written, he would have been preparing for his second tour in the Congo.

I am thinking of him now and how different our journeys into Africa are. Aside from the purpose, I am aboard a very comfortable BA flight on what will be a journey of just over 8 hours. When Dad first went to the Congo, the journey was 13 hours with 120 or so other men in a military personnel carrier. I will have lunch served soon, he was given a plastic bag with a sandwich and some fruit for sustinence. He was wearing a bulls wool uniform, I have clothes suitable for the terrain which employ the latest technologies to keep me cool when I need to be cool and warm when I need to be warm. To combat malaria Dad took one quinine tablet each week. I have two months supply of very expensive and effective Malerone which taken daily will prevent my getting the dreaded disease.

As my dad loves to remind me “I don’t know how easy I have it!!”

Back to London

A short post before I leave Abbeyfeale to return to London to complete my preparations for my big trip. While I type this note, Limerick are being beaten by Clare in the All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final. I spent the afternoon watching the minors match with my Nana Riordan and her family; unfortunately Limerick were unlucky to lose to Galway. It doesn’t seem to be Limericks day.

Just a few days at home and I am overwhelmed by the support and encouragement I’ve been blessed with. I was nervous about telling my parents; I worried that my fathers experience in the Congo would colour their reaction to my adventure. I’m so pleased that my parents are fully supportive and far from thinking I’m mad; they are really happy I’m undertaking this endeavour. The same can be said for my siblings and I’m really glad to have their backing.

My Nana as always sent me away with two cakes of her home made bread, encouraging words and the most heartfelt embrace. I can’t wait to return and tell her all about my adventure. She too made a very generous contribution and asked me to look to the older members of the community I will live with and be very mindful of their needs.

I visited with Fr. Tim’s sister this morning. I wondered how I would feel if it were my brother in the African wilderness and I only saw him once every two years. She is very proud of him but I’m sure misses him. Her son, his nephew plays football for Kerry and I understand is a promising player. I’m sure Fr. Tim would love to be at every match. For my part I’m going to take a DVD of the next match to Narus so that Fr. Tim can be proud from a distance!

I’m away to the airport shortly and even though I’m often away from home for more than two months, this time seems a little different. I will have had what promises to be a life changing experience and will have a new niece or nephew on my return. It’s an important few months for all of the Quinn family!